here is day four of my December stories, I'm sorry if it ended up too much of a case than a fun little story.
-For a Cabin in the Woods, its Actually Quite Cute-
"Abby," McGee said as he pushed a low-hanging tree branch out of his way, showering snow on himself, "Remind me why we are out here again?"
Abby stopped walking and looked up at McGee, "I thought Gibbs told you, I need to find some evidence, and I don't know what I'm looking for, so I couldn't tell you to go looking on your own." When she was done talking, she continued walking, searching the snow for anything she could use to find their killer.
"We've been out here for hours, Abby. It's getting dark, and it's cold, can we please go back to NCIS?" McGee asked as he hurried to catch up to her.
"Soon, McGee, I think I'm about to find something." Abby shot back as she continued marching ahead.
McGee shook his head and followed her. The trail they were following had been shoveled before the previous day's snow, but there was a set of fresh footprints in the new snow. Around them the forest slowly got darker, the sun was setting, and they had now been out here over two hours.
After ten more minutes of walking, they came upon a log cabin in a large clearing. The cabin was fairly small, and had a log fence around it. Lights were on in the cabin, and smoke came out of the chimney. There was an outhouse near the opposite edge of the clearing, and beside that was a dirty red truck.
"For a cabin in the middle of the woods, it's quite cute!" Abby exclaimed.
McGee looked at the structure, "I guess so." he answered Abby.
"Do you think they would know anything about the dead petty officer?" Abby asked McGee. "They must have seen something."
McGee sighed, "We could ask them, and maybe they know of a shorter trail back to the car."
Abby smiled and started walking towards the cabin, "Come on, McGee." she called behind her.
Rolling his eyes McGee followed Abby to the door.
Abby had already knocked by the time he reached her, and they could hear movement form inside. The door opened fairly quickly, letting a gust of heat and the smell of fresh bacon out of the house.
"What can I help you two youngsters with?" an old man, who looked older than Gibbs, asked as he stepped onto the front porch.
Abby gave him a bright smile as McGee showed his ID, "Hello, sir, we're from NCIS. We were wondering if you had seen anything involving the murder that happened a few days ago?"
The man sighed, "I'm Daniel Walker. Why don't you two come in, I'll tell you all I know about Petty Officer Young." He moved out of the way and let Abby and McGee inside.
The interior of the cabin was one room. In one corner was a small kitchen with a table and single chair. One of the other corners had a single armchair and TV stand. The entire other wall was taken up by a bed and wardrobe.
"So, what do you know about Petty Officer Young?" McGee asked, opening a notepad he removed from his pocket.
Daniel glanced over to Abby, who was looking at his messy kitchen counter, before speaking. "Young was often around this area, he liked to hunt. I'm not the biggest fan of hunting but he was a nice guy, always said hi to me."
McGee looked up from his notepad. "Did he ever say he had any enemies?"
"No, I was really shocked to hear he had died—" Daniel said, but was cut off by Abby accidently knocking something off the over-crowded counter. His eyes narrowed, and it looked like he was going to yell at Abby for a second, but before he could, Abby apologized.
"Sorry," she said sheepishly. "McGee, we need to go, Gibbs will be wanting us back."
"OK, Abby." McGee checked his watch. Seeing that it was already six, he conceded to Abby and said, "You're right, we do need to go. Thank you, Mr. Walker"
"Of course, take care now." Daniel said as he walked them to the door.
Their previous walk through the woods was now a quick panicked half-run as Abby pulled McGee down the trail. The full moon was the only thing that lit their way, and the snow had begun to ice over from the cooler temperature as the sun went down.
"Abby," McGee hissed when they were a fair distance away from the cabin. "Why did we need to leave so quickly?"
"I found the evidence I was looking for, I think he's the killer, McGee."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes," Abby insisted, "it has to be him."
Before he could respond, Abby slid on the ice and knocked McGee over with her.
After they had slid a few feet, McGee looked at Abby. "Are you ok?" he asked as he checked her face for scratches. Finding none, he stood up then helped her up as well.
The next day dawned on Gibbs' team as they crept through the snowy woods to the cabin McGee and Abby had found the previous day. The sun had melted the thin layer of ice they had slipped on the previous night, leaving the trail slushy.
Gibbs was in the lead, walking quickly but carefully, and his weapon was trained at the ground in front of him. Tony was one step behind Gibbs and was moving along much the same way. Behind the leader and senior field agent, Ziva was hurrying along with a look of great displeasure on her face. McGee was taking up the rear and telling Gibbs where to go.
After a half hour of speed-walking, the four agents came upon the cabin once again. One of the first things McGee noticed was that the truck was no longer in the clearing, and there were fresh tire tracks leading away from where it had been parked. The cabin's curtains were covering the windows, and there was no smoke drifting from the chimney.
After clearing the house, Tony commented, "I guess Abby was right, not only was this Daniel Walker our guy, he does have a really cool cabin in the middle of the woods."